


words cut deeper

by Moonliel



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Canon Universe, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Tags May Change, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24032086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonliel/pseuds/Moonliel
Summary: Okumura Rin wasn't as bright and sunny as he portrayed himself to be. When alone, his thoughts and feelings devoured him. With a little help maybe Rin might just be okay.
Relationships: Okumura Rin & Okumura Yukio
Comments: 6
Kudos: 71





	1. turbulent

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [And Through the Darkness, It Will Shine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973116) by [HeyHeyRayRay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyHeyRayRay/pseuds/HeyHeyRayRay). 



> I have never written anything quite like this before. It is full of dark themes of self-harm, self-doubt, and is in no way meant to be glorified. I am not a psychologist so anything in the story is to be taken as fiction only.
> 
> I always felt that Rin's character deserved more depth to these darker thoughts and emotions we were given. This is not beta-read and is being written more as a stream of consciousness. Bursts of canon (anime only) will be making an appearance but for the most part will revolve around Rin and his thoughts as he continues on his road to be an exorcist. Yukio will probably play a bigger part later on.

* * *

He thought the first night after was the worst, but everyday after was a struggle. Rin could recall the splintering wood, the shouting and the clacks of a gun going off. 

The words he had shouted at his father were nothing but gibberish in his mind. All he could remember were the blue flames, the fanged teeth and the blood - so much blood. The Gehenna gate was the thing of nightmares and sometimes Rin woke up thinking he had sunk in right into that dark pit.

The monster wearing his father’s face would flash through his memories at odd times, reminding him that he was truly the son of Satan. It made Rin hate himself. If he hadn’t existed then Father Fujimoto would still be alive, Yukio would never have had to become an exorcist and see demons since birth and could have become a doctor like he always wanted.

Rin tried not to have these thoughts, knew there was nothing productive about them, but when he was failing at his studies, when he failed to succeed at a simple exorcist activity, he felt low and the thoughts would sneak in. 

Living with Yukio, having his younger brother as his exorcist teacher, and being under constant surveillance didn’t give Rin the time to come to grips with everything he learned in a span of a week. 

Throughout his whole life Rin had been called a demon by parents, children and teachers alike. He had always hated being called a demon - it made him feel like he was inhuman, like he didn’t belong and he was a monster. Yet those thoughts would go away whenever he was around Father Fujimoto, the rest of the clergy at the church and most of all around Yukio. Small, fragile, cry-baby Yukio who needed protection. Yukio made Rin’s abnormal strength seem worth it, made it seem as if it was a blessing rather than a curse.

When the truth came out it was like everything Rin had counted on had fallen, a mere illusion cascading to the wayside and laying bare the truth he had feared all along.   
  
He was a monster. He was a demon. And worst of all, he was the  _ son of Satan _ .

Rin would put on a brave face, bury himself in manga and jokes and work, but in the end he could never really confront himself. The feelings would bubble under his skin, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Sometimes he was happy when Yukio would leave for a mission because it gave him a moment to get the feelings out the only way he knew how.

It started off small - after all, despite feeling like an unwanted, hated demon, Rin was still afraid to hurt himself. He had been hurt plenty of other times and was never one to shy away from a fistfight, but something stopped him the first few times he attempted it.

He felt weak even then - what a loser, couldn’t even make the first cut.

He tried it with a piece of porcelain first. He had dropped a mug one day and threw out the shards when he realized the mug was unsalvageable. Something in him looked at the shards longer than he needed to. He threw them all away, except for a single shard.    
  
Rin had an idea why he kept it, but his mind shied away from outright acknowledging it. He spent the whole day with the jagged shard in his pocket. He would finger it while in class, feeling it’s sharp edges and pointed tips. By the end of the day he was well acquainted with every dip, scratch and edge. He felt ready.

Later that night Rin had told Yukio he was going to take a longer bath instead of the usual shower. He lied and said that he was unused to using a sword and so needed to ease a few muscles. Rin waited until Yukio left the bath that night, the need vibrating within, making him feel antsy. He couldn’t stand to be with Yukio any longer either.

He had failed his younger brother for so long, had always been a failure and a loser, and he just couldn’t take the disappointment any longer. He was just in a towel as he sat on a nearby stool. He had the jagged porcelain piece in his pants pocket before he had entered the bath. Rin felt the edges one more time and then brought the piece to his wrist. At first he had considered doing it somewhere else, somewhere it would be harder to see, but with the long sleeves of his school uniform he was assured that any sign would be hidden from sight. 

He held it over his wrist for a while, letting the feel of it rest against his skin. Rin took in a breath and pressed harder. He had always had to watch out for his strength - more and more as the years went by - but now it was time to be utilized. The first drop of blood that welled onto his pale wrist let a rush of endorphins flood through his body. Everything that had been boiling inside, everything that had been vibrating and aching had finally found a point of release. He let go of a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. 

Rin leaned over his wrist, bent at the waist and head so low he was almost touching the ground. He hated how good it felt. Now that the first hurdle was over the next press against his skin had gone easier - almost  _ too _ easy. He pulled on the shard, scraping it against the slightly raised ridge of his vein. Red blood welled in its wake. Rin looked at the rivets in detached fascination.   
  
This was his blood. This was demon blood. The blood of the son of Satan.

It felt like absolution.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

That first time was the scariest. Rin didn’t often let his mind get so bogged down that he spiraled like that again. But life continued to pound away at him. Pointed remarks, violence against him for simply existing, a twin brother he couldn’t understand - the weight of people's stares and their fear engulfed him, enveloped him, tore him down.

Shiemi had been a bit of a bright light in this pale existence of a life. Rin wondered that if she found out how he suffered, how  _ weak _ he was if she would continue to be his friend. The rest of the class didn’t care for him, he could hear it in the snide remarks they made, the way they were always clustered together and away from him. They weren’t his friends, not really, and after Rin found out about the infamous  _ Blue Night _ he knew that if they were to learn the truth about him they would simply hate him.

He would get in Bon’s face, tell the other teen how he wanted to kill Satan, but even that had lost it’s usual edge when he had a moment to think about it. Despite Satan being, well,  _ Satan _ \- the demon was still Rin’s biological father. Father Fujimoto was definitely his real father in all but blood, yet even when he was younger there had always been moments where he felt he hadn’t belonged.

He had stopped looking at his memories of his youth through rose-colored glasses. Moments with the priests over dinners and birthday parties were now overshadowed by the truth that he didn’t know his actual  _ birth  _ day. Walking to school with Yukio and rescuing his hat from a lightpost reminded Rin that Yukio grew to keep secrets from him. Whenever Yukio had a bad dream his younger brother would crawl into Rin’s bed. They would hold hands and Rin would reassure Yukio that he would be protected and that nothing would hurt him. In retrospect he was the one that had hurt Yukio the worst. What if they hadn’t been bad dreams? What if four-year old Yukio had been disturbed or attacked by an actual demon and had to flee? Rin never knew, could never know, and that hurt much more than he thought it could.

At his lowest Rin would remember the words Yukio spat at him, out of hurt or malice was unclear. 

_Think of you? That should be obvious. Knowing that you were a demon, I thought of you as a threat. Needless to say I still do. …. You should just turn yourself in to the Knights of the True Cross, or better yet, die._

There had been no hesitation in the words Yukio had spoken, no trembling infliction that would give hint that he had been lying. No, Yukio’s words were true, stated with conviction, something his brother had wholly believed in. 

Every time Rin thought of them they haunted him, exactly like Yukio said they would.

The worst days came after that. He thought that losing his home, having seen his father killed and taken over by a demon was the worst, but that wasn’t true. The worst was how Yukio shrugged him off at first, how Yukio lied and hid a big part of himself away from Rin. The fact that Yukio didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth, even if it was against their father’s wishes, led Rin to believe that he and Yukio weren’t as close as Rin had always believed they were. Weren’t siblings supposed to be close, especially twins? Rin sometimes wondered if he was the only one that considered them siblings.

And so Yukio’s pointed words, the look in his eyes as he pointed his gun at Rin - all of that burned into his memory. It was when those memories arose in his mind that Rin turned to something more than a small, porcelain shard. He kept the shard, stained dark brown from dried blood, in a box under his bed next to a few manga. It was weird keeping it, like some kind of treasured possession, but it made him feel better keeping it around. He would stare at it sometimes and let out a crooked little smile.

Rin progressed to a small paring knife from the kitchen. Since Yukio never cooked, the kitchen was Rin’s domain - his normally observant brother had no way of knowing that a knife had gone missing. 

Once again the first cut was the scariest. He tried to find the marks from his other cuts, but with his demonic blood and powers he healed entirely and not a single scar remained. At times it had almost driven him mad. The cuts healing as rapidly as they did tended to lessen their calming effect on his mind and soul. The healing only proved just what a monster he truly was. With the amount of blood that would usually spill any  _ normal _ human would have passed out or maybe even died, but not Rin.

No, Rin was abnormal - a freak and a monster, a demon. He wasn’t allowed to be comfortable, wasn’t allowed to feel good even when he hurt himself. His thoughts and feelings always twisted inside of him and only a deeper cut, another slash against his skin, would calm him.

This was his punishment for all the harm he had done, for all the people that had been killed because of his father. The Blue Night, Yukio’s anger and hatred, Father Fujimoto’s death - all of it was his fault.

Rin took the knife and pressed the sharpened edge against his skin once more. The rivets of blood pumped out slowly, almost sluggishly. He watched in raw fascination as the skin slowly healed closed, not a trace of the cut was remained.   
  


He took the knife and made sure the next cut was deeper.


End file.
